An alcoholic caught shoplifting for the eleventh time this year has been jailed.

Gateshead magistrates locked up "nuisance" Robert Irving for 14 days for the latest theft.

Irving, 55, whose address was given as the Salvation Army hostel in City Road, Newcastle, admitted stealing a bottle of brandy from Tesco's supermarket in Gateshead on May 31. The court heard that Irving's alcoholic problems have worsened in the past two years since his mother's death but that he was having detox treatment.

Magistrates branded him a nuisance and said 11 offences for theft since January 6 were so serious that custody was the only option.